Build #3: sitka/black walnut 000

[Neil K Walk]

I glued the rosette in, scraped it flush then cut out the soundhole and the outline of the guitar. Now I need to do a couple of quick passes on the drum sander before starting the process of mapping out the brace pattern and gluing them down.

[Treenewt]

Glad it’s coming together Neil!

[Neil K Walk]

I've been working with the brace positioning and creating inlets in the X brace for the intersections with the tone bars and finger braces. All of the braces except for the No. 1 brace (the upper transverse brace with the hole for the truss rod access) now have a 60' radius. Hopefully this keeps the top from sinking too badly - or cracking if it takes another tumble. (knock on wood)



In this closeup you can see the inlets. I still need to do some radius sanding whittling down on the ends a little so that everything fits without causing gaps in the intersecting braces.

[Neil K Walk]

The top is nearly ready to be installed. I just need to profile and scallop the braces.



In the meantime I need to align the top to the rims and prepare them to interlock with the X brace. I have seen on kit builds that there are registry pins but I haven't engineered my mold for that. I did notice that there are two holes in the neck block though so that's a good place to start:



Then after some measuring I drilled two holes through the top to accommodate the pins. These will be covered by the fretboard eventually.



I am now in the process of determining where to cut notches in the rim. It involved using a 24" ruler abutted to the xbrace and marking where to cut.

[Neil K Walk]

I've chiseled, scalloped and sanded the braces as well as cut inlets into the top of the rims to accept the top. I've also reglued reinforcing tape inside the sides to help remedy potential side splits.



Tomorrow I will glue the top to the rims. It was getting too late tonight for me to do it without risk of mishap.

[Neil K Walk]

The new top is glued on and I dare say the tap tone sounds much better than the last one. Now on to finally doing the binding once and for all.